MOSCOW -- Investigators say police have detained a man who has confessed to killing two women in a central Russian city, and then tried to mislead investigations by scrawling a message at the murder scene demanding freedom for jailed members of the Pussy Riot band.

The man -- a 38-year-old university professor named Igor Danilevsky -- was detained Thursday in Kazan, Russia's Investigative Committee said on Friday. It said Danilevsky wrote "Free Pussy Riot" on a wall in the victims' blood because he wanted the deaths of the 38-year-old woman he dated and her mother, 76, to appear as if they were a "ritual killing."

The Committee said Danilevsky had convinced the woman to take out a loan to repay his debts, and promised to marry her. Police had found the knife used to stab the women to death and disfigure their faces and bodies, it said. - [NYDN]